The European Space Agency's (ESA) Solar Orbiter was able to capture an amazing and detailed footage of the fluffy plasma structures that cover the Sun.
A Detailed Look Into the Sun
The footage shows hair-like and feathery structures that consist of plasma. This follows magnetic field lines in the lower atmosphere of the Sun as it transitions into an outer corona that is significantly hotter.
According to the ESA, the brightest regions have temperatures of roughly one million degrees Celsius. On the other hand, cooler material may have a darker appearance, as it takes in radiation.
As for coronal moss, this is what gives the fluffy appearance of the Sun in the footage. These odd structures are like moss that can be found on Earth. It appears like lacy and fine features.
On the solar surface, these can typically be found at the center of groups of sunspots. This is where magnetic conditions are quite strong and large coronal groups form. The moss has two different atmospheric layers, namely, the corona and the chromosphere. Due to the extreme heat of the moss, most instruments are unable to detect them.
There are also spicules, which are tall gas spires that can be seen on the horizon of the Sun and that reach up from the chromosphere of the Sun. These can span up to 10,000 kilometers in height.
Coronal rain can also be observed at the timestamp of 0:30. Such a material is cooler compared to the rest of the solar surface. It consists of plasma clumps of higher density and that fall back to the Sun under gravity's influence.
The video was snapped at a distance that is equivalent to roughly one-third that of the Earth-Sun distance. It was recorded by the Solar Orbiter back on September 27, 2023 with the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) Instrument.
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ESA Solar Orbiter Mission
The ESA Solar Orbiter mission was conceived in order to conduct a close-up study of the Solar System's own star and the inner heliosphere, which is the innermost regions of the Solar system that remain uncharted. This is necessary to understand and even predict the Sun's unruly behavior, which life on Earth depends on.
The mission aims to address a key question in the field of heliophysics. It specifically wants to know how the Sun creates and controls the heliosphere. This main and overarching objective can be expanded further into different questions, namely, the drivers of solar wind, the origins of the coronal magnetic field, how heliospheric variability is driven by solar transients, how energetic particle radiation is produced by solar eruptions, and how solar dynamo drive and work on connections between the heliosphere and the Sun.
The intensity of sunlight that the Solar Orbiter is exposed to is roughly 13 times more intense compared to what humanity feels on Earth. The craft should also be capable of enduring intense outbursts that come from solar eruptions.
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